In his exciting debut as a novelist, Lord, a
practicing lawyer, mixes shady financial deals, organized crime, and the real-life
threat of cyber warfare into an unlikely but always entertaining blend of high
drama and comedy.

Lord’s
hero, Tom Tresh, is a Los Angeles lawyer living on an aging sailboat while
struggling to support his seven-year-old son and an ex-wife. When a friend offers
him a “huge payday” if he helps with a shady deal to sell a complex but
seemingly harmless computer program to a Hong Kong company, Tresh finds himself
in a firestorm of intrigue, because the program is actually a powerful cyber
weapon, capable of infiltrating and destroying computer systems.

Lord cites former National Security Advisor Richard
A. Clarke’s 2010 book, “Cyber War,” as one of the chief inspirations for
writing THE LOGIC BOMB. Lord explains
that a logic bomb is a type of cyber weapon, a "virtual explosive,"
that can infiltrate various systems and wreck them.

So-called “logic bombs” actually exist, says Lord,
and, according to the best authorities, are already planted in U.S. software
programs that run our financial, transportation, utility and – scariest of all
– defense systems.

(Clarke’s book) “describes in great detail the types
of cyber attacks which we are all becoming familiar with,” Lord explains. “I
decided that one of the cyber weapons he describes, a logic bomb, would be an
excellent `MacGuffin’ for my story. Now cyberwar is filling the news. Little
did I know!”

For More Information

Scott R. Lord has been a highly successful criminal
and civil trial lawyer for 35 years and is active in the practice of law with
the law firm of Cohen & Lord, a P.C., located in the Century City area of
Los Angeles. Scott is a devoted student of Italian language and literature. He
is the father and step-father of six children and lives with his wife and
children in Santa Monica, California.

My telephone rang at 5:20 a.m.
When I picked up, a computer voice told me it was a collect person-to-person
call from “Charles Papadoks.” I accepted. The only people who call collect
these days are in jail.

“Tom, you there?” It was
Charlie, of course.

“Charlie,” I yawned, “what’s
going on?” There was a lot of crackling on the line.

“Tom, I’m in jail. They
arrested me an hour ago, just came to my house and took me to the police
station. All they’ll tell me is that a couple of guys got killed, they think I
know something about it.”

I sat up in my bunk. “Did they
say who?”

His voice came back through
the interference, “No, they won’t tell me. But there’s a TV in here, it’s all
over the news. Says it happened somewhere in the west valley, maybe near
Chatsworth.”

“Chatsworth?” Naturally. “But
why would they arrest you, they think you did it? That’s crazy!”

“I know,” he shouted,
“completely crazy! Tom, there’s going to be some kind of lineup later this
morning. They say they got someone saw me in the area. You gotta help me.”

“Just shut up. Take my advice
for once.” They didn’t advertise the fact, but pay phone lines at jail are
recorded. I hung up.

I turned on the television to
a local station.

I could see a helicopter view of
a crime scene lit up like a movie set, with crime scene tape and dozens of people
milling around. The reporter was saying that two bodies were found near the old
Spahn Ranch. The early morning news anchor, clearly hyped on too much caffeine,
was playing up the Manson angle and the crawl at the bottom of the picture kept
repeating, “Spahn Ranch Bloodbath – Manson Copycat Feared.” A police helicopter
was circling overhead, and at least two news helicopters were there to cover
the “breaking” news. The anchor quoted an unnamed police spokesman as saying that
one of the victims had been killed with one shot in the head, and the second
body had been disemboweled.

The police couldn’t, or
wouldn’t, say whether the bodies had been killed in the field, or killed
elsewhere and dumped in the field. An eager young reporter at the scene,
dressed in a bright red leather miniskirt and a matching jacket, reported that
there was a swastika tattooed or cut into the forehead of

the second victim.

Smith answered his cell phone.
“We have a witness, Tresh. She was walking her dog a few minutes after
midnight. Says she saw someone coming from this field. Charlie’s business card
was in one of the victim’s pockets.

When we called him, he told us
that he’d been up here earlier, visiting a house in the area. He wouldn’t
explain what his visit was about. Denies being here last night.”

“Why the quick lineup? Don’t
you need time to beat a confession out of him?”

“Very funny. I’m pretty sure
it’s not Charlie, but I gotta follow up. And all Charlie’ll say to us is he
wants his lawyer and you’re it.

Either the old broad
recognizes him or she doesn’t. I’ve got no interest in a phony ID.”

“Why arrest him then?”

“He’s a flake, Tom. I just
wanted him to be somewhere I could find him.”

“How far away was she from the
guy she saw, assuming it was a guy of course?”

“About fifty feet she says.
She was near a streetlight.”

“What have you told her about
Charlie?”

“Just that we have a man who
might have been in the area, can she come down and look and see if he’s the man
she saw.”

“I’d like to go to the crime
scene first, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. We could use a
first-class mind like yours, help us with any clues we might have missed.”

I ignored the sarcasm. “You
still be there in an hour?”

“Yeah.” He hung up.

The first victim was a young
man with a blond crew cut, a beatific smile, and a small red round hole in the
middle of his forehead. It struck me that if you didn’t know what had happened,
you might think the young man was one of those Western devotees of the Hindu
religion, lost in the joy of

meditation under the stars,
quietly chanting his mantra as he lie still. His feet were splayed out and were
clad in leather sandals. His hands were flung loosely at his sides, the way
yogis do when they take the position of savasana, the corpse pose. Of course,
if you looked closer, you would notice the small

trickle of blood from the red
spot on his forehead and the fact that he didn’t seem to be breathing. He
wasn’t in a yogic trance or pose. He was a corpse.